


the chemist said it would be all right

by Fossarian



Category: Mad Men
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 19:16:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10837683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fossarian/pseuds/Fossarian
Summary: It was all too much to take in at once, he wasn’t used to someone just giving him what he wanted. There was always a trick, a hidden clause you missed in the fine print.





	the chemist said it would be all right

Bob Benson always did seem too pat of a name to be real. Like _Don Draper_. It was the name of a successful man. American, wholesome, bland. It was like its own brand, not a man’s name. 

The Chevy account is projected to take weeks. Pete spends the whole plane trip in a bad mood. Benson’s quiet cheer is sucking the life out of him.

“Do you want another drink?” Benson asks. 

_You’re not my fucking manservant._ Pete glares out the window, hating him. “Where’s yours?” he says. 

“Oh, I don’t like to drink on planes,” Benson says with blithe virtue. 

“You never drink.” 

Doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke. The man’s pure as snow and like snow, cold. 

“I drink,” Benson says. He’s flipping through a National Geographic but Pete’s sure he hasn’t read a single article. He can feel Benson’s attention on him even if his eyes aren’t, all of his focus on Pete. 

“When?” Pete sneers, swirling the ice in his empty glass. “When it’s safe?” 

Benson looks at him. “When I want to.” 

Same difference. Drinking puts down your guard and Benson never does that. He watches and waits and makes sure everyone else feels safe around him so they can reveal their secrets. But Pete knows better. 

Yes, he does know better. The reminder of Benson’s secrets soothes Pete in a way that alcohol has failed to. He has the power. _He_ does. Unlike with Draper this time it doesn’t feel like a burden. It’s liberating. 

A steward comes and switches out his drink. He doesn’t remember ordering a new one. Benson’s shoulder sometimes touches Pete’s when he flips a page. Pete wants to move it but that seems overly dramatic. Maybe he imagined that moment in his office. Benson’s odd anyway, maybe he meant something else. And wouldn’t _Pete_ look like the idiot then? Benson must laugh at him behind his back. 

Benson is a fool and Pete the bigger one for indulging him this long. What else would you call someone who latches himself to Pete Campbell’s mediocre coattails? 

Even if Pete doesn’t like men he can see Benson is good-looking. Better than good. He’s dark and pleasing. He thinks of what you want before you know you want it. He’s a bit like Joan in that way. Only scarier, because everyone with sense knows to be afraid of Joan and it would never occur to anyone to be afraid of Bob Benson. Little obliging Benson, always waiting in the wings. Like a cat watching the canary. 

“How did you get rid of your accent?” Pete says, spinning around in the minimal room his first-class chair allows. It comes out more outraged than he’d intended. 

Benson gives him those wide eyes again. “I’m sorry?” 

“You heard me, you lying prick. How did you get rid of that hick speech? Duck told me your parents are backwash hillbillies.” 

Benson’s bland half-smile never falters. “I travelled a lot, I guess.” 

“Yes, I’m sure.” 

Pete sneers at the window, staring hard, but there’s not much to see at night above the clouds. Benson can give him anything but the truth. When he looks back the man is still looking at him. 

“What?” Pete snaps. 

There’s a fractional widening of Benson’s eyes. Then it’s gone, before Pete can understand what it was. “Nothing,” he says. The dark sweep of his lashes lower and Pete is left staring at the strangely delicate curve of Benson’s cheeks. 

His stomach twists sickeningly. _You’re disgusting_ , he wants to say. He tries to think it hard enough that Benson hears it, but if he does he remains unruffled. 

Pete twists back around in his seat so that Benson’s profile is no longer in his peripheral. He closes his eyes, trying to sleep. Benson must be actually reading an article now because the pages no longer rustle. He’s a decent travel partner, at least. Quiet. Pete hates traveling with Sterling, the man never shuts up. It’s worse when you’re trapped with him in a car or a plane and your only escape is permanent. A prospect that is beginning to look increasingly attractive again. Pete imagines himself flinging open the emergency doors and spinning out into the sky. You probably don’t even feel it, from this height. 

Several minutes go by in sweet silence. He tries to think of something else other than his anger. It’s always there, not always at the surface but near it; Pete shuffles it around depending on the day and how busy he is. But it is always there. 

Must be nice, he thinks. Must be nice to be Draper or Benson. They’re like ghosts, without a past and their future only a moment. They must be utterly lacking in burden or remorse. The trick, though, is that they always have to keep moving. And then what is even the point? At least Pete has a wife, a child, a beautiful house… None of which he sees. 

Maybe he’s just jealous. 

Damn it, he’s still thinking of the man. It would help if he wasn’t so bleeding close. Close enough Pete can smell him. Benson must use Old Spice. Pete curls tighter in on himself. He should have his mind on business. The Chevy account. The whole reason why he’s having to suffer now. Think of the account. He’s a close man, an account man. Get in, get out, and go home. Just like in the war, or so he’s heard. 

He must manage it because the next thing he feels is someone gently shaking him. “Pete? We’ve landed.” 

Pete sits up and rubs his face. Benson lets go of his shoulder before Pete realizes he should pull away. “Do you want some water?” Benson asks. 

Pete shakes his head. “Stop hovering over me.” 

“Okay,” Benson says, and straightens. 

Pete wonders how much of an ass he can be before Benson will snap. Everyone has a breaking point. Where is Benson’s? 

He looks up at the man for any clues, but Benson is predictably a blank slate and watching him with far too much patience. “This isn’t going to work,” Pete mutters, climbing out of his seat. 

“What?” 

“I wasn’t talking to you.” 

Benson backs up so that Pete can stand in the aisle. Most of the other passengers have left. 

“Do you want to eat?” Benson asks as he hands Pete his carry-on. “You had a lot to drink.” His eyes unconsciously sweep down Pete’s frame as if to see if his failings have physically manifested yet. 

“Later. I want to get to the hotel.” 

“We could order room service.”

“Quit worrying about fucking food,” Pete says. An old woman a few rows down throws him a disapproving look. 

No cracks break the beautiful mask of Benson’s face. He exudes calm and a lazy sort of alertness. An affectation, not real. Nothing he is or does is real. Pete has to remember that. It’s so easy to fall into that lithe grace Benson has cultivated. 

Benson doesn’t say anything to carry the conversation along, like he usually does. It’s an odd kind of silence, not sullen like you might expect in the face of Pete’s rudeness. The more untroubled Benson behaves the more pissed off Pete gets. His indifference is _fake_. Pete _knows_ he cares. He wasn’t imagining what happened in his office. He gets that sick twist in his stomach again. How is he ever going to work with this man? This account is too important to be distracted by perversions. 

Benson sits like a schoolboy in the cab. Hands on knees, his head angled up slightly to look at the passing Detroit nightlife. Pete watches the street lights slide down the pale arch of his neck and into his collar. Not one button is undone even through the long flight from New York. 

Pete wants to say something but he doesn’t know what. Anything to break this bland white noise. 

“Where did you grow up?” Pete asks. 

“You already know that,” Benson says without looking at him. 

“I mean the city. Town. Where specifically.” 

“Nowhere you would know,” he says. 

“Oh Christ,” Pete says. “Can you give a straight answer to anything?”

“Yes I can, sir,” Benson says as if it were a real question in need of answering, his face still to the window. “I just don’t understand why you’re asking about that.” 

“Because I want to know. What difference does the reason make?” 

Benson betrays a single moment of nervousness when he swipes his tongue across his lower lip. Pete can see it in the reflection of the window. He realizes he’s holding his breath as he waits for Benson to decide. For a second he almost thinks Benson wants to give in, but instead of a name he says, “It’s not important. I barely remember it myself.” 

“You’re impossible,” Pete says, irritation renewed. “You don’t have any right to keep secrets like that. Lying about who you are, _what_ you are. Tricking people into trusting you.” 

Benson looks at him then, his expression unreadable. Nothing seems to touch him. He’s like glass, smooth and cold and reflecting nothing within. You only see in him what exists around you. 

“I wasn’t tricking you,” Benson says. 

“I didn’t mean _me_. I’m talking about the company.” 

“Oh,” Benson says, turning back to the window. It’s as much a dismissal as a slap in the face. “Of course.” 

Pete has the strange feeling that he just won a point, but he doesn’t know how. Just as he was acutely aware of Benson’s attention, so does he know when it’s been withdrawn. It’s like the sun falling behind a cloud, there’s no more of that irksome intensity but neither is there the warmth. 

_Good_. Pete expects to relax now but doesn’t find himself any happier than he was before. But that’s nothing new. 

The cab driver pulls up to the hotel and Pete pays him while Benson retrieves their bags. The man travels light. Pete supposes you’d have to if you were living a lie. Draper never seemed to have any material attachments either. Unlike the rest of the office, Pete knows it’s not an aristocratic indifference to his wealth, but rather because they are such confidence men that they believe they can always make more, or start over. Everyone else just thinks they’re better people. 

There’s a doorman to open the door for them so Benson is deprived the opportunity to perform more of his obsequious duties that Pete has become accustomed to. He’s an account man now too. That doesn’t stop him from retrieving the keys from the lobby or shouldering both his and Pete’s bags. 

“Give me my bag,” Pete says. 

“I got it,” Benson says brightly. 

A tic jumps in Pete’s jaw. He bites down on the insult he wants to hurl at Benson, knowing he’d be right but that it wouldn’t hit its target. He turns on his heel and leads the way to their room. He should have asked for separate rooms. It’s not like Pryce is around anymore to chase people down with expense receipts. 

“Did you like being a butler, then?” Pete asks. 

“I didn’t mind it,” Benson says. 

“Did you steal the silverware the way you steal identities?” 

Benson pushes the number 8 to their floor. “My name is mine,” he says, staring with a little too much interest at the wall. 

“So you stole just the silverware.” 

Benson grins at him without any real humor in his eyes. “I don’t think I’d make a very good thief.” 

“No?” 

Benson shrugs. 

They endure the elevator ride in silence. As they walk down the hallway Benson says somewhat hesitantly, “I realize you’re uncomfortable sharing rooms. Do you want me to go see if they have another?” 

“This will suffice for now,” Pete says sullenly. It seems like defeat if he agrees that yes, he is uncomfortable in Benson’s presence. He is the one who has damaging evidence over the man now, he shouldn’t feel this way anymore, and he resents Benson for ever making such an inappropriate overture to his boss. Why couldn’t he have continued simply being accommodating and expressing no wants or desires of his own? 

Pete has the key and he opens the door, all the while aware of Benson waiting at his shoulder. He can’t get rid of that itchy feeling at the back of his neck that he is being tricked in some way, that not all the truth has been exposed to the light. 

Well, he has all he needs to know about Bob-if-that-is-his-real-name-Benson. He’ll just treat him like the upstart servant he is, that’s all. No need to make this more complicated than it is. Benson’s a nobody and he will remain as such, at least to Pete. 

After a cursory check of the room, Pete makes a beeline for the minibar and opens a small bottle of Glenlivet. “Want a drink now?” Pete says, goading Benson with the bottle. 

“If you’d like me to,” Benson says mildly. 

He’s still standing near the door as if waiting to be invited into the room. His air of unselfconscious servility irks Pete, even as he acknowledges that such behavior probably served Benson very well when attending to the bored and rich. Maybe it has become such a habit that Benson doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. This idea, that Benson isn’t fully aware of the consequences of his own past, makes Pete feel more charitable towards him. 

“Come sit and drink. You’re making me nervous just standing around like that.” 

Benson puts down his suitcase at the foot of his bed and walks across the room to Pete. He takes the glass offered to him and knocks it back almost immediately, an action that Pete approves of. So the man wasn’t lying about this. 

Pete refills Benson’s glass more than half full. “Do it again,” he says. 

Benson glances at him over the rim for a second before tipping it back and letting the brown liquid slide down his throat. Pete refills his glass and Benson gives a not entirely confident laugh. 

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” 

Is that what he’s doing? Pete doesn’t know his own motivations yet. This is the wait-and-see phase. Alcohol can be revealing of a man’s true character. It’s useful if you know how to handle the tools and what to do with the information. 

“You need to loosen up a little,” Pete says. “I’m tired of you following anyone with influence around like a gold-digging whore.” 

“I just like to be helpful,” Benson says. 

“I’m sure the fact that only men like Draper seem to benefit from your altruistic qualities is merely a coincidence.” 

“I don’t understand.” 

Pete clinks their glasses together. “You don’t have to. Drink.” 

Benson is beginning to show some cracks in his armor by the fifth round, and the bottle is completely gone. Pete watches him with interest. He hadn’t exactly been subtle in tripling Benson’s glass with more liquid than his own, but Benson hadn’t indicated a problem. 

“I need to sit,” Benson says, smiling in a way that seemed more genuine than what Pete usually saw. His cheeks are slightly flushed and he’d unbuttoned the first button in his collar and loosened his tie. “I haven’t done this in a while.” 

“Done what, drink?” Pete pulls a chair away from the wall and sits in front of Benson. 

“Been tested,” Benson says. Benson’s eyes drift to the window, his thoughts seeming far away for a moment before he snaps them back to Pete, once again at attention. He smiles at Pete like Pete’s the best thing he’s ever seen. Trudy never looked at him like that. Nobody does. 

“I’m going to see what else is in the bar,” Pete says, breaking the contact. 

“Okay,” Benson says like neither this, nor that, matters very much. “Shouldn’t we go to sleep?” 

“What’s the matter, can’t handle the lifestyle?” Pete says. “This is what being in accounts is like with the clients all the time.” 

“Prostitutes and whiskey,” Benson says. His tone is not judgmental or positive, he is merely expressing a fact about the world. Their world. 

Pete opens a second bottle, this time vodka, and mixes it with some Oceanspray he finds in the bar. He sees ads everywhere, and sometimes he thinks about going into the woods and shooting himself. But Remington is a brand too. 

“You’re being nice to me,” Benson says as he takes the glass from Pete. 

“Is that what you call it?” Pete pulls his tie off and throws it on the bed. He hasn’t really been drinking since the plane, too entertained by Benson’s progress. 

Benson merely smiles and tips his glass back, as if to say _you don’t know nice _. An idea Pete would agree with. He wonders what kind of world Benson lived in before he lied his way to the top. Probably not very nice at all.__

__Pete tips more vodka into Benson’s glass and Benson laughs unevenly. “I can’t do this anymore. You win. I have to work tomorrow, don’t I?”_ _

__“Car men are trash. They’ll probably respect you more if you come in with a hangover.”_ _

__But Pete is satisfied. _You win_. Yes, that’s what he wanted. Once again, Benson has delivered precisely what the client wanted, before he even knew to ask. _ _

__Benson leans back until he is lying on the bed. His chest gently rises and falls with his methodical breathing. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable before,” Benson says._ _

__Pete watches him curiously. “It’s already forgotten.” He takes Benson’s glass from his loose grip and finishes what’s in it before standing up. “You can’t go around saying things like that to other people, though,” he says, hardening his tone to what he imagines is paternal. “Not all of your superiors will be so understanding.”_ _

__“I don’t want any other superiors,” Benson says, staring at the ceiling._ _

__“Well,” Pete says. He pushes his chair back into place, letting the sound of the legs scrape against carpet fill the silence. “If you play your cards right, maybe you won’t.”_ _

__Benson laughs again, for some reason. He sits upright suddenly and rubs his face in a vain attempt to sober himself, his eyes focusing on Pete in the dim light with too much intensity. “I’ll do whatever you tell me to do,” he says, drink and fatigue making his voice roughly fragile. “Just take me with you.”_ _

__Pete scrapes his fingers through his hair and sighs. _What to do_ … This was why he’d never made it anywhere he wanted to be. Even when handed the keys he didn’t know which door to open. “Yes, well,” he says. “We’re not going anywhere right now but to bed.” _ _

__Benson knows when to take a hint. One of his many talents. His face loses that open sincerity and the mask slips back into place. “Sounds good, boss,” he says, his tone snapped back to its regular chirpy pep, if slightly slurred. He inches back on the bed until his head is resting on a pillow._ _

__Pete stares at him aghast. “You can’t sleep like _that_. Get out of your suit.” _ _

__This is how he knows Benson is well and truly gone. He can’t imagine the man normally being so remiss about his appearance._ _

__Benson obediently sits upright and begins unbuttoning his shirt. It takes him longer than it probably should, and Pete just stands there watching him. He tries to call up some sense of condescension for the man, but all he feels is a vague sense of bemusement, his mind racing. Benson is his, he all but said it. Now what did Pete want to do with that power? It was all too much to take in at once, he wasn’t used to someone just giving him what he wanted. There was always a trick, a hidden clause you missed in the fine print._ _

__Benson kicks off his shoes but then goes to the trouble of tucking in the laces and arranging them neatly on the floor, as if compelled to perfection by forces not under his control. Pete thinks once again of what Benson’s life must have been like before. He has taken off his shirt and pants and folded them neatly onto a chair, either unaware or uncaring that Pete is simply standing over him staring like an army sergeant. When he sits back in bed in nothing but his undershirt and boxers he sighs as if he can finally relax. He’s more muscular than Pete._ _

__Pete moves around to the other side of the bed. With his back to Benson he undresses and changes into his pyjamas, the image of Benson so exposed troubling him. He could take advantage of the man right now and Benson probably wouldn’t even complain in the morning. Who knows how these deviants operate. With women, you had to at least pay for their dinner first._ _

__He turns back around and isn’t entirely surprised to find Benson’s soft dark eyes on him. “Do go to sleep, Benson,” Pete says, more gently than he meant to. He must be tired as well._ _

__Like that’s what he was waiting for this whole time, Benson’s eyes flutter shut. After a moment his lips part and his breathing goes deep and slow. Pete stares at his face, giving one last analytical look at the man before laying down in his own bed. He has not really learned anything that he didn’t already know, and is no less impressed by Benson’s ability to go from hot to cold than he was before. Perhaps it’s a trait only the Don Drapers of the world can possess. Something you couldn’t learn but was bred into you by years of deprivation and abuse._ _

__The man looks so guileless in his sleep. But then, if you didn’t know the truth, he looks that way when awake too. He had that rare ability of putting people at ease and you only remembered the feeling, not the cause. Benson was only memorable when he wanted to be._ _

__Pete doesn’t go to sleep for a long time._ _


End file.
